page_title: Parliament of South Australia
section_title: Legislative Council
hierarchical_section_title: Parliament of South Australia / Legislative Council
caption_attribution_description: English: 0
context_page_description: The Parliament of South Australia at Parliament House, Adelaide is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of South Australia. It consists of the 47-seat House of Assembly and the 22-seat Legislative Council. All of the lower house and half of the upper house is filled at each election. It follows a Westminster system of parliamentary government with the executive branch required to both sit in Parliament and hold the confidence of the House of Assembly.
  The Queen is represented in the State by the Governor of South Australia. According to the South Australian Constitution, unlike the Federal Parliament, and the parliaments of the other states of Australia, neither the Sovereign or the Governor is considered to be a part of the South Australian Parliament. However, the same role and powers are granted to them.
context_section_description: The Legislative Council (or "upper house") is made up of 22 councillors (MLCs) who are elected for the entire state by the Proportional Representation single transferable voting system (with optional preferential voting) to serve for a term that is usually 8 years. Elections for the Legislative Council are staggered so that 11 seats are up for re-election every 4 years, at the same time as House of Assembly elections. Legislative Councillors may serve shorter or longer terms than the usual 8 years in the event of an early dissolution of the House of Assembly. If half the chamber has served at least 6 years at the time of a dissolution, then they go up for election, but if all Legislative Councillors have served less than 6 years, only the House of Assembly faces the people.
  In the event of a casual vacancy, members of the Legislative Council are filled by an assembly of the members of both Houses of Parliament. If the member whose seat has become vacant was elected as a member of a political party, the assembly must, if possible, replace them with a nominated member of that party.
  The Legislative Council has almost equal powers to the House of Assembly. The only difference is that the upper house does not have the ability to initiate or amend bills that appropriate money or levy taxes. The Council may still request amendments to these bills and retains the right to reject money bills that it disagrees with.
  The primary function of the Legislative Council is to review legislation which has been passed by the House of Assembly. This can cause tensions between the government and the Legislative Council, which may be viewed by the former as obstructionist if it rejects key legislation, as can happen at times when the electoral makeup of the two Houses are different. Another important function of the upper house is to scrutinise government activity, which it does both in the chamber and through committees. As Legislative Councillors have been elected using proportional representation since the mid 1970's, the chamber features a multitude of parties vying for power. A government or opposition majority in the upper house has been unachievable since the introduction of this system, with the balance of power being held by a number of minor parties and independents.
caption: Legislative Council chamber
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